It‘s all about the game

Hello, Bonjour and Salibonani from Cawston Wildlife Reserve, Northern Matabeleland where I stay for about 2,5 months and help with the horses. Every morning we start working at 6 am, I am however always a bit late as I can’t get up on time, it is just too early. It really gets me sleepy and tired to wake up so early every single day. There is no weekend as the animals are hungry, need exercise or might get ill every day. Definitely harder than I thought at the beginning…

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For the first time, I lunged a rescued horse, that can not yet been ridden, in our re-opened lunging arena that we had fixed some days ago. The horse‘s name is Zhovhe and he was doing really well, we had lots of fun together. Maybe we will get to the point that he actually can be ridden by June. We will see what happens once his injured back leg has recovered from a very deep cut.

But I am not only working with the horses here, I also help preparing the food for the ostriches on the reserve, which contains sorghum, maize and millet. We mix about half of a ton for 8 ostriches that should last a couple of weeks. Feeding the ostriches is a special task and I am not yet brave enough to do that. These huge animals get really crazy, so the grooms who feed them, take a long whip to scare them away as an ostrich attack could end deadly.

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I also go on game drives through the reserve to look after the game or injured donkeys. During my first game drive, I have finally seen the wild sables antelope for the first time. Magnificent animals with long horns standing in front of the sun setting down! Another time I went with the car to look after the free roaming donkeys, which turned into a game drive as well as I saw a herd of wildebeests just next to a herd of zebras that were really close to 9 giraffes enjoying their afternoon.

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During my lunchtime I enjoy to hang out at the deck and watch the waterhole action going on. There is always a party one of a kind, kudus or giraffes enjoying the water, monkeys playing around, warthogs rolling in the mud or bushbucks just strolling the green plain. I have even seen some very shy impalas coming for a quick drink as well as an old, limping sable antelope – beautiful animal! During the evening a fire is set up and I enjoy the marvelous sunset from this fabulous veranda, where bushbabies come to join me.

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On the reserve, there is a dairy as well as a butchery and I saw for the very first time a zebra that was being skinned after it got shot on the game reserve. The skinning process takes about an hour, done by 2 or 3 people. Almost every part of the animal is used, the meat to feed on, the skin to serve as a rug and the parts being left over are fed to the vultures.

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My new lessons learned while helping at Cawston Wildlife Reserve:

1. Sleeping until 7 am is heaven – getting up every single day at 5.30 am is really getting hard.
2. When not vegetarian, one needs to know where the meat comes from – seeing meat being processed, makes it more precious and understandable why this needs to be done in a proper way.
3. Avoid any sound when enjoying to watch animals drinking at a waterhole – every little click can scare them away easily.

Cheers to wandering the world and the wonders of our lives, hope to see you see you soon again – bye bye, salut and lisale kuhle ∞